It pops, but is it art? ... Lady Gaga's Artpop album cover, designed by Jeff Koons

As you well know, Lady Gaga's new album, Artpop, isn't merely a collection of hummable pop songs encased in a CD, or preloaded on to a downloadable interface. It is, instead, a "reverse Warholian expedition" that aims to blur the lines between art and pop, and pop and art in a way not seen since she tried to do it on all of her previous albums. Yesterday she unveiled the Jeff Koons-created artwork for the album via a Twitter hashtag and a worldwide simultaneous live-stream thing, but what is she trying to tell us? Let's put our glasses on and have a look, shall we?

1. She's learned from the Born This Way debacle

Lady Gaga's head crudely plonked on the front of a motorbike was not what the world needed, and yet that's exactly what we got with 2011's Born This Way cover – an image so appallingly 80s-hair-metal and wildly out of step with the rest of the campaign's artwork that even her fans assumed it was some elaborate hoax sent to test them. Bright, bold and brilliantly ridiculous, Artpop looks like the sort of image that will jump out at you rather than make you want to blind yourself voluntarily.

2. She's a fan of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus

While your eye might not immediately be drawn to the album cover's background – there is, after all, a large shiny blue ball resting between her legs – it features elements of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus crudely juxtaposed with a black-and-white image of what may or may not be Gaga's nose. Given that she recently spent the majority of her iTunes festival show half-naked, her modesty covered only by some strategically placed shells, and with a wig of flowing brown locks piled on her head, it's clear that Gaga's latest muse is the goddess Venus. Perhaps she's trying to tell us that, like Venus, she is now a fully grown woman? Maybe it's a statement on how Gaga represents both the earthly goddess and the spiritual one? Or maybe she's just recasting well-known paintings in a pop setting to really hammer home this relationship between art and pop?

3. Geri Halliwell is an unlikely influence

Like all of us, Lady Gaga clearly struggles to forget the time Geri Halliwell – emancipated from the Spice Girls – opened the 2000 Brit awards with Bag It Up. Unsure of how best to arrive on stage, the equally subtle and considered Halliwell waltzed out from between two giant spread-eagled legs. While Geri seemed to be suggesting a personal rebirth, on the cover of Artpop, Gaga's shown giving birth to a piece of art in the shape of a Jeff Koons shiny-blue beach ball. Fingers crossed they'll be available as part of her merchandise range next summer.

4. 'One second I'm a Koons, then suddenly the Koons is me'

This collaboration with Jeff Koons was foretold in Lady Gaga's recent single, Applause, and true to her word, she has quite literally become a Koons. According to a post on her Facebook page, the centre image is a Koons sculpture that will be exhibited the day before the album's release as part of what she – and no one else – is calling artRAVE (it's the album launch party, basically). Now whenever we've had a party of any kind, we've always made sure the valuables are hidden away, but we're sure she knows what she's doing.

5. She prefers to trust her instincts when it comes to the weight of her breasts

According to the wikiHow website, the best way to weigh one's breasts is to first fill a bowl to the brim with warm water, then place said bowl on a baking tray and put them both on some scales. Once this is done, submerge one of your breasts into the bowl and do some sort of crazy-looking calculations to work it all out. For Gaga, a pop megastar with very little time on her hands, she can do it via some simple cupping exercises. If you look closely, that look of concentration is telling.

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